The Weight of Responsibility
by The Dancing Bard
Summary: Al asks Roy a favor on behalf of his brother. A little look at automail, responsibilities and consequences. Featuring: Parental!Roy, Protective!Al, and Oblivious!Ed


The Weight of Responsibility

"Ano, Colonel?"

"Ah, Alphonse-kun! Please come in." Mustang welcomed the young boy with all the joy of one temporarily relieved from terminal boredom. As he watched Alphonse shuffle into the room, he marveled at the magnitude of the boy's shyness that allowed a 7ft tall suit of armor to appear insecure. "What can I do for you?"

Al shifted nervously as he gingerly perched on the small wooden chair then straightened to meet the Colonel's curious gaze. "Col. Mustang-san, I want to ask a favor of you."

"Very well, ask away and I will help you if I can."

"I want you to stop teasing nii-san about his height."

Mustang froze in surprise before narrowing his eyes in thought, his mind racing to consider all the possible angles and implications of the younger Elric brother's request. "Does Edward…?"

"Ed's in the library right now. I told him I was taking a walk because I was bored."

So Alphonse deliberately deceived his brother, hmm? Well, it was a half-truth, but still… Mustang filed away Al's willingness to use deception on his older brother for future consideration, and focused on what the young boy had left unsaid. _He doesn't know I'm here. He doesn't know what I'm asking on his behalf because he'd never ask. It's a favor for Edward, but it's important to me._

Alphonse interrupted his silent introspections with a quietly voiced question, obviously determined to explain until he got what he had come for. "When did you stop growing?"

The sudden non-sequitor surprised Mustang into telling the unadorned truth. "Well, I had a growth spurt at the beginning of the Academy, so I'd say when I was 19. Why do you ask?"

But the determined boy ignored the question and immediately fired off another of his own. "If you had two cylinders of steel approximately 2 feet in length and 2 inches in diameter, how much would you estimate that they weighed?

"But Alphonse, what..?"

"Please answer the question, Colonel."

Mustang reminded himself that he was dealing with Alphonse, the most level-headed boy he had ever met, and decided to just answer the question. "I'd estimate that they'd weigh approximately 10 pounds each.

"Arigatou, Colonel-san. That was about what I calculated, too. Now, at what age did Edward nii-san get fitted with his auto-mail arm and leg."

"When he was 11, of…course…" And suddenly Alphonse's strange line of questioning made sense.

The boy in armor drove home the point mercilessly. "Right. Edward nii-san began carrying approximately 20 pounds every day when he was 11 years old. Every. Single. Day. Whether he was walking, sleeping, or fighting. What do you think that kind of abuse does to an 11 year old boy's body?"

_It would stunt the body - hold back growth_, Mustang's mind answered automatically. _Force the rest of the body to adapt to the strain leaving little energy left for vertical development._

"That's why he eats like he does, as well. Part of it's because he does like eating but that's not why he eats so much more than other people. He's always hungry because his body works three times as hard as someone his size normally does. He's always tired, too, always taking naps. The fighting doesn't help because then he gets injured and his body has to work even harder to heal."

_How long have you been an alchemist?_ Mustang's conscience whispered, finishing what Alphonse had started_. Did you never consider the Law of Equivalent Exchange? You thought Ed paid the price for his auto-mail limbs once? He paid the price for his transgression by losing his real arm and leg. He __pays__ the price for the auto-mail limbs every day. __Every__. __Damn__. __Day__. And you never saw it. You never saw what they were – are – doing to him. You only saw their use. He could use them as a tool and you could use him. He was useful because he wouldn't get hurt as easily. His looks could get him into situations unnoticed and his auto-mail, alchemy or (admittedly) brilliant mind could get him out if things got bad. But you never saw what it did to him. _His self-honesty made him acknowledge the truth._ Dammit, I never asked._

That small brutally truthful voice in his head took that thought and made it resound. _You never asked. You are his superior officer. He is one of your men __and__ he is just a boy! You look after your own, dammit! He needed you and you weren't there for him. You __mocked__ him._ A small part of him wanted to whine, wanted to make this Edward's fault – for not telling him, for letting himself be used, for being so cynical and worldly as to seem twice his age, for making the choice to try and resurrect his mother in the first place. And that insidious voice reminded Mustang that Edward had made his choices so he had to live with the consequences, but that he, Mustang, had given the boy the opportunity to make everything right again. Just because the consequences were harder than he had imagined, just because Edward was younger than his other subordinates…

But then Alphonse took those doubts and strangled them with one last question for Mustang to answer. "Do you know how Edward lost his arm?"

"Wasn't it because he tried to bring your mother back to life?" It sounded harsh in cold terms like that and Mustang was forced to remember that the young boy seated in front of him – the soul bound to a suit of armor – had attempted the impossible and lost more than his innocence that night, too.

"No," Alphonse said almost before the Colonel had finished speaking.

Once again, this was not what the Colonel had expected. True, the Elric brothers had never described in detail the events of that night to anyone as far as Mustang knew, but in general…

"He lost his leg in payment for trying to bring back mother. He lost his arm in payment for binding my soul to this armor. If he hadn't, I would have been completely consumed."

_Ahh_, the insatiably curious part of his mind sighed_. And there's the last piece of the puzzle – why Alphonse came to see me today, why this means so much to him, and why he doesn't want me to tease his older brother about his height. Every time Edward looks at his auto-mail, he remembers what he did. Full-metal would never ask me to stop because he feels he __deserves__ punishment – for what he attempted and what it took from Alphonse. And that's where his inner drive comes from, why he makes such a good alchemist and agent, because he'll do anything to fix Alphonse because of that one mistake. But Alphonse sees the auto-mail and sees Edward's sacrifice to save his life, and his continuing sacrifices of bearing the auto-mail, becoming a National Alchemist, facing all the trials and the dangers every day to try and fix Alphonse. And Alponse knows Edward too. He knows that Edward would never tell me his troubles or ask for help or even for me to stop making fun of his height. Alphonse knew he would never ask and he knew why. So he came here today to ask this favor for his nii-san knowing that he would have to force me to see, to understand._

_And_, he finally concluded, _I do understand. I know what it means to make mistakes, those fatal choices, that haunt you in the dead of the night, that make you cry "if only, if I only…!" I know those choices from memories always on the fringe of your mind, coloring every decision afterwards for good or for bad. Those are the choices that change a person for life and give young men old eyes. For my choices in the war, I bear the responsibility to change the world so those choices forced on me by the military need never be made again. I will always remember that promise, that duty, that burden. I can't forget even if I wanted to, but sometimes, when I'm relaxing with Maes or Riza, I can pretend, for a little while, that I am the Roy Mustang before those choices. I can almost forget what I did and what I have to do because of it._

_But Edward can never forget. His choices and his duty are forged in steel and welded onto his body. He carries that weight, that responsibility, every moment of every day. He cannot forget and he cannot put that burden aside even for a moment._ And, another small voice in Mustang's head murmured, _if he ever grew used to the weight, he would only have to look at his brother trapped in a suit of armor to feel the burden once more. _

Mustang had no idea how long he spent thinking before he raised his head and said, "I understand, Alphonse-kun. I can't promise that I won't forget or say something out of habit, but I do promise to try to not tease Edward about his height so much." He debated with himself briefly before adding, "I know something of responsibility and it's weight."

Alphonse stood and bowed, saying simply, "Arigatou, Col. Mustang-san." Then he turned and walked to the door.

Behind him he heard the Colonel softly say, "Arigatou to you too, Alphonse-kun," and then he left. It had been awhile and though Edward would still be in the Library, he would probably be getting hungry soon. If a suit of armor can smile, then Alphonse smiled as he went to collect his nii-san for lunch.

**********

It took him a few months to notice, because although Edward is a genius and keen in matters intellectual, his social observational skills leave much to be desired. However, he did eventually notice, and when he finally did he brought the matter to the attention of his brother. "Hey, Al. Have you noticed? The Colonel Bastard's been strangely quiet with the short jokes. It's been at least a month since he called me 'shrimp.'"

If the suit of armor wasn't physically smiling, then his voice definitely was when Alphonse replied. "Maybe Col. Mustang-san just has more respect for you."

The Full-Metal Alchemist responded to this with a snort of derision and the muttered comment, "He's probably planning something, the bastard." But Alphonse could tell by the way he paused and looked thoughtful before returning to his research that Edward was pleased. Edward still carried his burden, but in his own way Alphonse was working to make it lighter.

**Author's Note: **_Please don't send the Flame Alchemist after me! I don't hate Roy at all. __This developed out of an interest in that wonderful genre of Parental!Roy, especially works by authors such as Shadow Mage Evelyn and Captain Kase among others. _Abstention_ by Asidian remains one of my absolute favorite FMA fan-fics of all times because it has such good Parental!Roy and Protective!Al without Ed being abused or acting overly girly, immature or otherwise ooc. I also found the possible consequences of auto-mail to be an intriguing idea not fully explored in the anime or manga. I tried to guesstimate the weight of Ed's automail based on a formula for steel pipes but since there aren't really character stats on the diameter of Ed's ankle I figured anyone that really cared could try to work it out themselves. The point is that not how much heavier the weight would be but the reasons behind its presence. I also wanted to develop these ideas and explore the relationships between the three characters. Al rarely interacts with Roy in most fan-fics unless it is for a yaoi pairing, but the relationship between Ed and Roy (whatever you want to call it), would necessitate interaction. I like the idea of Roy and Al plotting behind Ed's back for his own good with Ed being totally oblivious. Please let me know how I did on achieving those goals!_


End file.
